Webster had roused himself enough to stand, albeit unsteadily. She said to him, “Where did this footman live? If our suspect knows or learns what happened, we may not have much time to find him before he does something worse.”
“We’re going to have bigger problems than that soon,” Grimes growled.
Kincaid nodded and said, “We made a lot of noise. We have corpses. The palace guard will want to talk to us. I don’t think we can just say Midwinter’s name to make them go away.”
Abigail touched her brow with the fingers of her right hand. “All the attention Midwinter wanted us to avoid—that’s over now.”
“I’ll talk to the Royal Guard when they arrive,” Sergeant Webster said. He told them where to find the footman’s quarters. “His name was Jaspar,” he added. “Not that it matters now.”
Dungot cleared his throat and said to Abigail, “Takal’s in bad shape.” He sounded apologetic.
“No I’m not, I’m fine,” the ogrun bodyguard said, attempting to stand. The dwarf put a hand gently but firmly on her shoulder until she stopped resisting.
He added apologetically, “I should stay with her. If possible, I’ll join you after we track down someone to give her proper treatment.”
“Of course,” Abigail said, though a bit tightly. The notion of losing their hired experts made all of them uneasy.
Grimes said, “Abigail, leave Artis behind. We’re not dealing with gremlins.”
The cat had returned to the investigator’s side, unfazed, as if an unholy terror had not just tried to murder them all. The cat was either brave, or stupid, or both. Grimes hadn’t decided, but he did feel some fondness for their mascot and didn’t want to see her killed. He also knew Abigail viewed her as a luck charm. She hesitated, looking at the cat, which meowed back.
Dungot said, “I’d appreciate if you left her here, in case anything tries to sneak up on us.”
“Very well,” Abigail said. She put Artis back in her carrier and set the cage by the dwarf and ogrun.
“Hey, Kincaid,” Dungot said. From his pouches he pulled out a short length of bronze chain with several thick links. “Take this. That umbral reaver on the battlements looked to be using magic. I made this to interfere with such things. It’ll probably only work once, but it might come in handy.” Kincaid took it and nodded thanks.
“Let’s go,” Abigail said.
Mel looked at the covered corpse of Lestingway and asked, “What about—” even as Elliot was saying, “We can’t just leave him like this—”
“We don’t have time to grieve or to deal with bodies. We’ll ensure he gets a funeral later.” Her expression was grim, and the corners of her eyes looked bright with moisture, which she blinked away. She had her lumitype in hand and went in the direction the sergeant gave them. Grimes considered trying to stop her and convince her to leave, now that there were casualties, but the look in her eyes told him it wouldn’t work. She was a bloodhound on the scent now. Kincaid was one of the first to follow, giving Grimes a look. They both knew protecting their lead investigator fell to them. Mel was last to leave the dining room and follow, taking a moment to seize a couple of items from the gear cart before running to catch up.
• • •
“DO YOU SMELL SMOKE?” Kincaid asked quietly as they moved cautiously up on the closed door in the servant’s quarters. Grimes was at his side, both of them at the fore, after insisting Abigail hang back until they checked if the place was safe.
“A light’s on inside,” Grimes whispered back, inclining his head at the glowing below the door frame. He indicated the door handle, and Kincaid took hold of it, moving back as far as he could to give Grimes room. He raised a hand and three fingers, then counted down and threw the door open, stepping out of Grimes’ way.
His gauntlets charged, Grimes gritted his teeth and rushed inside, prepared to tackle or punch whatever he found. He pulled up short as he came face to face with Orin Midwinter. The chamber had already been ransacked, and Orin Midwinter was standing by a small hearth fire, into which he had just thrown several pieces of paper. His hand was still extended as Grimes and the others rushed inside.
Midwinter looked startled at their sudden entrance but not alarmed. He said, “I see your investigation also brought you here. I’ve found little of interest so far.”
Abigail had followed close behind Grimes, and as she took in Midwinter by the fireplace and the papers burning inside, her expression became angry. For a moment she forgot she was talking to her client. “Hey! What are you doing? That’s evidence. Are you destroying evidence!?”
He blinked at her in surprise then looked down to the fire and back. “Oh. Yes, sorry, this must, indeed, look suspicious. The pages I was burning contained state secrets. Nothing in them pertains directly to our investigation. Our suspect was spying on the royals in addition to his other misdeeds.” This explanation partially mollified Abigail though she frowned.
Midwinter asked, “And what did you find to lead you here?”
“The dining hall was compromised,” she said in a rush. “A servant named Jaspar caught us there and killed himself to summon and unleash an infernal.”
Midwinter’s eyes widened. “Did it escape?”
“No, we dealt with it, but there were casualties. Jaspar, of course, but also Lestingway.” She swallowed before continuing. “There were additional injuries. Webster stayed back to intercept the palace guard. Our occult expert, Magus Bornal Dungot, felt certain Jaspar wasn’t the infernalist, just an unwilling conspirator. We came here hoping to find something. We don’t know if our main suspect is aware that his plans are compromised yet.”
Midwinter nodded, considering her words. He indicated the room. “There are clear signs that more than one person was staying here.” In addition to the bed in one corner, there was a mattress pulled up against the opposite wall.
“I hadn’t finished my search,” Midwinter said. “I was distracted by these notes about the king and his fiancée. My previous inquiries suggested Jaspar was the one involved in tampering with the protections on the battlement. I don’t yet know the identity of his mysterious guest.”
“Let’s see what else we can find,” Abigail said. “Kincaid and Grimes, keep an eye on the hall. Elliot, Mel, help me.”
The room was small, so there was a limit to its potential hiding places. Elliot was the one to discover a loose floorboard and the small crevice beneath, inside of which he found what looked like a thin journal. He was about to hand it to Abigail, but Midwinter said to him, “Let me see that first.”
The young caller looked to the investigator. She hesitated then assented. Midwinter took it and said, “I need to be sure there are no secrets you shouldn’t be privy to.”
They waited tensely while he flipped through the pages, peering intently at them. Either he was an extremely fast reader or he was skimming for key words. His expression darkened as he looked through it. He cursed under his breath and then handed it to Abigail, pointing at something on one of the pages.
“Ephraim Morley,” she read aloud then shook her head. “Means nothing to me. Is this our man?”
“Yes,” Midwinter said, his expression pained. “I’ve had a run-in with him before. He’s the key. I’d recognize him if I saw him unless he managed some sort of convincing disguise or has access to other obfuscations.”
“I’d like to read this in full,” Abigail said.
“Of course. There might be something in there that will point us in a direction, though most of the writing is incoherent. Unless it’s a cipher, perhaps.”
Elliot had taken the coin given to him earlier by Midwinter in hand and was staring at it. He stepped closer to Abigail and pressed it against the book.
“I feel something,” he said, startled. The coin suddenly wrenched free of his fingers, and he had to move quickly to grab it again. He raised his hand, and they saw the metal disk spinning in his palm seemingly of its own volition.
“Excellent,” Midwinter said. “It has som
ething. Close your hand.”
“It’s pulling,” Elliot said. “Trying to get free.”
Mel said excitedly, “With a little time, I could probably turn that into a spectral compass.”
“If it’s reacting that strongly we need to move quickly,” Midwinter urged. “Magic must be in play. Morley may be summoning his unholy allies even now. We have to stop him before he unleashes an infernal invasion of the palace.”
Elliot stepped first into the hall, turning with his hand held out, as if gauging its impulses. He looked at Mel. “Help me put on my hood. It’ll be easier for me to focus.” With her assistance his head was enclosed. He paused a moment then pointed left.
After proceeding down several turns, stopping briefly at each for Elliot to check his bearings, Midwinter said, “This is not a direction that takes us closer to either the princess or the king.”
Abigail said, “He’s likely getting everything ready before making his move. We should do the same. We don’t know anything about what we’re facing.”
Grimes said, “Shouldn’t we maybe try to find Nemo or someone powerful?”
“There’s no time,” Midwinter said. “Nemo is no longer in the castle, regardless.”
Elliot shuddered. “I can hear the screaming of souls.”
“A chorus we’ll be joining,” Grimes remarked sourly but followed closely after.
They went quickly down the corridors, Elliot consulting the coin at each intersection. After a few turns, Midwinter said ominously, “We’re heading toward my laboratory. “There are many things I keep there which would be very bad in the hands of a man like this.”
• • •
THEY HURRIED DOWN A SHORT FLIGHT OF STAIRS and another hallway, and then they heard a commotion ahead. This area of the castle was less well-lit with gas lamps at less frequent intervals, sending shadows dancing as they advanced toward a set of double doors. Grimes disliked the way their own shadows moved, thinking of what Dungot had told them of umbral infernals and their penchant for leaping out of them. The doors ahead were ajar, and as they neared, they saw a body sprawled on the floor before the opening in a pool of blood. It looked to be one of Midwinter’s people from the livery, as he was attired the same as Sergeant Webster. There was the sound of breaking glass and the crackle of voltaic weaponry.
Midwinter bent down to check the fallen man. “Waverly,” he said sadly, shaking his head. “He’s gone.”
Grimes sucked in a deep breath as he braced himself, wishing they were anywhere else. He paused for a moment at the door, ensuring everyone was ready. Kincaid was beside him, club in one hand, his pistol in the other. Midwinter was next, looking determined and dangerous with his staff ready. If there was any good time to have a former inquisitor standing next to you, Grimes decided, this qualified.
For once, Abigail had put her lumitype aside in favor of her pistol, and Mel was armed with a long metal rod atop which was a custom lantern; Grimes didn’t think this one was equipped to emit Strangelight. Seeing him squinting at it, she gave him a smile and made a thumbs-up gesture.
Elliot said, “It’s in there. I can feel it.” The caller was leaning against the nearby wall, his head tilted within his sensory deprivation hood, occupying some other unseen and dangerous world. He looked to be in distress already. Grimes wished they had left him behind.
He looked to Kincaid, who signaled a short countdown with his fingers. When his last finger was pulled in to make a fist, they pushed inside.
They entered a large circular chamber, what was clearly an elaborate and extensive laboratory, as impressive in its own way as Leto’s private library had been. The Strangelight had its share of such spaces in Blackwell Hall, though Grimes had never spent much time in them. Ringing the outer perimeter of the room was an elevated outer area with high shelving along the walls, all packed with books, jars, assorted glassware, rune-inscribed lengths of metal, and an assortment of complex machinery. The main floor occupying the center of the room was slightly lower. It was crammed with narrow rows separating flat counters where a dozen alchemists could have worked at various stations. Each was topped with a variety of glassware and complicated arcane or scientific apparatus, including burners below flasks and alembics with bubbling colorful liquids and others that emitted periodic arcs of voltaic energy.
The room was likely ordinarily brightly lit, as alchemical lanterns ringed the place, but most had been shattered. The main source of light at present were the randomly placed alchemical burners, several set to their highest level, flames dancing and curling around blackened beakers, boiling their contents and emitting foul-smelling fumes.
The light of these flames was eclipsed by the sharper blue light emitted by the voltaic halberds wielded by two Stormguard who were just finishing the murder of one of their own brothers-in-arms, just a few feet away.
Their victim gasped and fell to his knees, his blue armor stained with his blood. His own halberd lay beside him. The murderous Stormguard turned at the sound of the doors flung open. Within their open-faced helms, Grimes could see eyes lit by an unnatural baleful glow. Behind these knights on the opposite side of the room was a tall dark-haired man wearing black leathers and holding a thick book open in his hands. He was flanked by a pair of living shadows. Near him was another man in Midwinter’s livery who stood listlessly, his eyes also gleaming.
The man with the book—presumably Morley—lifted in his other hand a black-iron device resembling a lantern. It glowed with a sickly greenish hue. Light was not its function, however. From the recently murdered Stormguard, a greenish smoke arose. It coalesced into a bright orb within which a skull appeared to scream and howl in pain. The knight’s tormented and naked soul was savagely yanked across the room and into Morley’s device. It was a soul cage, a vile tool employed by necromancers and infernalists to harness the immortal essence of their victims.
“Morrow save him,” Elliot said—for all the good that prayer would do, Grimes thought. Morrow wasn’t here to pop the cork on that soul cage. Having one’s soul enslaved and turned over to infernals was considered by most a fate far worse than death.
The Stormguard nearest the team lowered their halberds to point at them, their lengths parallel to the floor and in guard position, then they took a step forward. Grimes raised his gauntleted fists and braced to engage them, while beside him Kincaid raised his pistol. Ordinarily, he felt cocky about his chances in a scrap, but the prospect of going toe-to-toe with elite knights armed with halberds was far from appealing.
“They’re being controlled,” Midwinter said anxiously. “Try not to kill them!”
“I don’t think they’re going to give us the same courtesy,” Grimes muttered.
“Orin Midwinter!” the infernalist shouted across the room, his voice booming. “Come to me! Surrender to your rightful fate, and I will let the others leave here alive.”
The Stormguard had stopped momentarily, perhaps as a display of Morley’s control over them. Sparks flickered along their halberd blades. Grimes scowled, knowing his suit should protect him from electricity, but the storm chambers in the weapons might send deadly lightning to arc from him into his less-protected friends. He shouted over his shoulder. “Everyone stay back!”
The others except Kincaid obliged, taking several steps backward. Mel seemed to be frantically assembling something on the floor, a tool in each hand and a length of cord in her teeth. Midwinter stepped forward instead of back, raising his staff before him. He said to their group, “He’s a deceiver. He won’t allow any of us to live. Our souls will be offered as payment to his masters.”
Kincaid said, “I wasn’t planning on taking him at his word.”
Midwinter raised his voice to call to his adversary. “Morley, we have you cornered. You’re finished. Release these men at once!”
“Finished?” Morley gave a bitter laugh. “I have just begun! I’ve been waiting for you. Time to repay your many kindnesses. To think, we were once such close friends…”
<
br /> “I should have put an end to you long ago,” Midwinter growled. “But what you have wrought, I can undo.”
He raised a hand and runes swirled around it. A ripple of pale blue energy pulsed outward from him, sweeping across the Stormguard. Midwinter’s confident look was replaced by consternation when the knights appeared unaffected, the glow in their eyes persisting.
Morley laughed again. “Your paltry magic cannot unravel the power of my allies. The minds of these men are mine!”
Mel had slipped behind Grimes when he was distracted by this verbal confrontation. He glanced over his shoulder to see her hitch a thin but coiled length of metal cord to the back of his suit’s rig. She had done the same to Kincaid. Both cords extended back to one of her rectangular devices, one he recognized as some sort of vibrational sensor. A thicker conduit ran from it and was looped around the handle of a metal cabinet near the doors.
He didn’t have much time to wonder at this, as the Stormguard moved. The one on the left raised his halberd and swung at Kincaid, who managed to evade it by stepping hastily to the left. The halberd blade clanked into the marble floor with a spray of sparks. A jagged blue streak of electricity struck Grimes but was absorbed by his suit and sent back harmlessly along the cord behind him, conveying only a slight tingling. The other knight came for Grimes, his face twisted into a pained grimace—the man appeared to be struggling to resist the force within his mind.
Which might have explained his awkward swing. Grimes’ heart hammered. His suit was tough but built for keeping ghosts at bay, not knights wielding long poles topped with axe blades that shot lightning.
He moved quickly to get inside the Stormguard’s range. He reached for the haft just below the axe head as it came down, hoping to deflect it aside. While he managed to rob most of its impact, he felt its edge bite into the leather of his shoulder. His armor emitted a gust of compressed and charged air from the breach. The halberd crackled; voltaic energy erupted from it. Most of the wild, loose electricity raced through the cable Mel had attached to his back, directed straight into the machine, which crackled as it fried. Spillover from this blast erupted into the cabinet to which she had anchored the cord. Inside, jars and flasks shattered.
Wicked Ways: An Iron Kingdoms Chronicles Anthology Page 20